


water on water's the way

by ADreamingSongbird



Series: harbor [4]
Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Getting Together, M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, eiji has a floppy sunhat. need i say more?, or more accurately: finally putting a word to their relationship, part of a series but stands alone, the soft beach episode we never got but always deserved...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 10:18:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17282210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ADreamingSongbird/pseuds/ADreamingSongbird
Summary: The waves rush in and flow back out, water endlessly stirring the sand, as Ash takes Eiji's hand by the seaside and wonders if they can truly have a happily-ever-after.(Spoilers: yes, they can.)





	water on water's the way

**Author's Note:**

> big thanks to ollie and jo for supporting and encouraging me through this fic ;w;
> 
> as ever with this series, the title is a line from vienna teng's "harbor"!

Drowsy golden light shines through the blinds and illuminates the pillows, haloing the dust swirling above them like magic. Ash takes it all in for a moment, but only a moment, because it’s much nicer with his eyes closed, and snuggles closer to Eiji, who huffs. It’s cute. Eiji is cute. He’s warm and cozy and he smells of clean laundry and home. And for the next week they're on vacation to a tiny seaside town, and it’s just them, them, them.

“You’re soft…”

Eiji’s chest rumbles as he laughs, his hand stroking through Ash’s hair. “And you are _heavy._ Get up, it is already past nine!”

“Nine’s early.” Ash sighs, nuzzling his cheek against his shirt. It’s thin enough that he can feel his heartbeat through it, lulling him into daydreams of safety that stays, and comfort that lingers, and a warmth that only grows with time. He could fall asleep again, safe and cozy in Eiji’s arms, against Eiji’s heart, cradled close. He kind of wants to.

“Nine is _late!”_ Eiji squawks, jolting him awake again.

Ash gives him a baleful look. “S’not. Can cuddle more.”

“The sun is already up!” Eiji protests, weakly, because he likes to cuddle too and Ash knows it. “We could be out, doing things, and come cuddle at night…”

“We can do stuff at night, too.” Ash drags his leg up and throws it clumsily over Eiji’s, pinning him close, just in case he was thinking of getting up. Which he better not have been. It’s too early. “’Specially if _someone_ doesn’t go to bed at six like an old man.”

“I do not go to bed at _six!”_ Eiji swats his arm. “You want cuddles but you make fun of me? That is not a good way to continue getting cuddles. Is that not obvious? I thought you were supposed to be a master tactician, Mister Callenreese.”

Ash makes a face and bumps his nose against Eiji’s collarbone, too lazy to turn his head for a proper kiss but still wanting to show some sort of affection. “Only after noon.”

“Hmph.” Eiji sniffs, but he presses a lingering kiss to the top of Ash’s head and wraps his other arm around him, too, so he counts this as a battle won.

Eventually, they make it out of bed and onto the beach. Eiji very carefully rubs sunscreen into his arms and legs and even his feet—“What,” Ash teases, “you don’t wanna rock a flip-flop tan?”, to which Eiji gives him a dirty look—before passing the bottle over to him. He’s got a wide, floppy sunhat on, complete with a dinky blue ribbon, and it’s stupidly cute. Everything about him is stupidly cute. It’s incredibly unfair, especially when it’s hot out.

“Do my back?” he asks.

It’s not like Ash can ever say no to those eyes, so he squirts some into his palm and says, “Turn around.”

Eiji turns obediently, sitting on his knees on the towel. The sun makes their umbrella cast a blue shadow over his shoulders as Ash starts rubbing the sunscreen in; it’s a little greener than the sky and a little paler than the sea, and it strikes him as a peaceful color to drape Eiji in. Eiji looks at home in blue.

Then he kind of wants to laugh at himself, because Eiji looks lovely in every color, and he’s just hopelessly enamored with him. Hues of blue change nothing about that.

“I like your hands,” Eiji comments, watching the waves. “You have nice hands.”

Ash jerks himself out of his umbrella-fueled thoughts and blinks. “Huh?”

Eiji laughs merrily and turns to look up over his shoulder. There’s a reflection of diffuse blue light in his eyes, too, and his eyelashes are dark and pretty against his cheeks as he blinks. “I said, you have nice hands.”

Ash looks at his hands, splayed against Eiji’s back, nonplussed. They’re just hands. Blood-soaked ones that have pulled too many triggers, taken too many lives, ruined too many things. “Uh. If you say so? Thanks.”

Eiji looks at him for a long moment, silent, but the look in his eyes says that he can strip away the layers and shields and see Ash’s soul as clear as day, and if it was anyone but Eiji looking at him so piercingly, he would be unnerved.

“They are kind hands.” Eiji turns back around, and Ash slowly resumes his task, lifting the straps of his loose tank top and rubbing sunscreen thoroughly into his warm skin. “And they fit nicely in mine.”

On first impulse, Ash snorts. The words take a moment to register, and then he feels his cheeks heat—how the _hell_ does Eiji say sappy shit like that so easily?—as Eiji stretches, rolls his shoulders, and gets to his feet, turning to face him again. “I, uh—yeah, I mean, yeah, you have nice hands for holding too, you cheese.”

Eiji laughs and hooks his arms about his waist, drawing him in close, and Ash leans into him and gives him a loose hug back. Eiji really is a good size for holding, in general, not just hands, and it’s also just really nice, getting to touch someone who doesn’t want anything from him in return for a moment of fleeting affection. Eiji pours affection all over him like thick, golden honey, and asks for nothing back.

“You are cute when you blush,” Eiji says, pulling back and giving him a sunny smile. “Want me to get your back too?”

Part of Ash wants to say “Nah, I’m fine,” and run directly into the waves, but experience has taught him better. He’s a bit on the pale side, and he burns… kinda easily. For a fleeting moment part of him balks at the idea of letting someone else touch him, but that’s easily dismissed as soon as he looks down at Eiji again, because it’s _Eiji._

“Yeah, if you don’t mind.” He passes the bottle over and turns around, pulling his thin shirt over his head. The breeze is pleasantly cool against his skin, but the lotion in Eiji’s hands is even cooler, making him stiffen. “Shit, can’t you warm that up?”

“Hm,” Eiji hums. “No.”

“You’re the worst.” Ash relaxes again as the lotion warms under Eiji’s hands, though he still sends a dirty look over his shoulder. Eiji, of course, is too innocently focused on the bottle, pretending not to notice, but he figures the sentiment still gets across. “The actual worst.”

“I must be picking up traits from you, then.” Eiji pinches the back of his shoulder.

“Hey! Watch it, you brute!”

“Oh, no! You poor sensitive baby!” Eiji moves down to the small of his back, his hand warm against his skin, and a little ball of warmth pools into the base of Ash’s stomach. Having Eiji touch him like this, out in the open, feels so… intimate, without being sexual, and it’s novel but _good._ He’s not used to having intimacy that doesn’t feel like it needs to go _somewhere_.

Well, no, that’s not true. He’s used to it being like that with Eiji. Nowhere else. Eiji is… Eiji is an angel, full of love and made of light.

And also a bully with cold lotion and pinchy fingers, but he supposes even angels have to have their flaws.

Eiji finishes and stands up straight again, and Ash pulls his shirt back on, at least for the moment. “Okay, now what?”

Eiji gives him an incredulous look. “We are at the beach! What do you mean, _now what?”_

“Well, I mean, yeah, we’re _here,_ but what are we gonna _do_ now?” Ash shrugs. “Take a walk? Did you wanna get the camera out? Or are you into building sand castles and that kind of corny shit?”

“We are going to build a sand castle and you are going to like it,” Eiji warns, putting on his sunhat again. It’s big and floppy and has a string that goes under his chin, so that if the wind or waves knock it off he doesn’t have to go chasing it off down the beach. Which is effective, but also so, _so_ dorky.

“What if I don’t?” Ash asks, just to be contrary. He already knows he’ll like it because he likes everything he does with Eiji, because he’s with Eiji.

Eiji smacks his arm. “Then I will move out of my house and leave you there to live in a pumpkin patch, and you will have to deal with Nahoko pestering you about whether you really are my hot American boyfriend or not every day, without me there to distract her.”

“That’s only half a threat,” Ash snorts, taking his hand and walking toward the sea. “I’d just tell her yes because you wouldn’t be there to tell me no.”

“Ash!” Eiji laughs, ducking his head, as they reach the waves. Then he pauses, tugging at his hand, and Ash stops and looks at him, one eyebrow raised as he tips his head to the side, hat flopping endearingly in the breeze. “Do you want to be my American boyfriend?”

“Hot American boyfriend,” Ash corrects, stomach flip-flopping at the question. _Does_ he want to be Eiji’s boyfriend? Maybe. Maybe? Maybe isn’t a good answer. “You forgot the ‘hot’.”

Eiji rolls his eyes. “Just answer the question!”

Ash tries not to fidget, the sun already hot against his arms. He shades his eyes with his other hand and looks out over the water, but there’s nothing but blue as far as he can see; Eiji found a nice secluded strip of the beach, too, and the only other people he can spot are a long ways off down the sand.

“I mean… I dunno.” He bites his lip. “What does it even _mean,_ being someone’s boyfriend? I don’t know the difference between that and… what we already do.”

Eiji hums an _I-don’t-know_ and shrugs. Water rushes around their feet as a wave retreats. “It is just a word. It does not matter, really, I think. I do not know if there is an exact word for what we have, so none of them fit quite right. I do not know if there is a difference between calling us best friends and calling us boyfriends.”

He’s so calm about it. How is he so calm about it? This entire thing is such uncertain and weird ground and yet Eiji’s just like yeah, it’s just a word, does it matter? Of course it matters, because Eiji deserves someone who’s gonna give him the _world_ and Ash doesn’t know if he can be that person or not, and that’s the real crux of the matter, isn’t it?

“You deserve a really good boyfriend,” he says finally, tasting the salt of the sea breeze on his tongue. He chooses his next words carefully, already knowing Eiji won’t like them but somehow compelled to say them anyway. “And… I don’t know if I can be that. Good enough. For what you deserve, I mean.”

“Ash.” Eiji takes his other hand and faces him directly, and though he doesn’t force his chin down to make him look at him, there’s something about the intensity in his eyes that keeps Ash from looking away. “Do not say stupid things. I know you have a very high IQ.”

“What? But—”

Eiji squeezes his hands to shush him, and he obediently falls silent. “None of that matters, Ash. Not what I deserve or what you deserve or any of that. I do not think _deserving_ something plays into this. Even if it did, you make me very happy, so by your own logic, I deserve you, because you _are_ good. But that is not my point.”

Ash’s chest aches, suddenly. He tries to dismiss it as just salt stinging his eyes, but he knows better.

Eiji lifts his hands and draws him closer, so that they’re standing chest-to-chest with nothing but their joined palms between them. His heart pounds. “Do you want me?”

“What kind of question is that,” Ash mutters, cheeks flaming and head tipped down. “Of _course_ I want you, you’re the best person in the world, and—”

Eiji squeezes his hands again. “And I want you. And that is all that matters. Do you see?”

Ash bites his lip. He _wants_ to accept that it’s just this simple, but everything straining in his chest and yearning to get out and darken the sunny sky is screaming that he can’t have this and it can’t be real. “I want to see, but…”

Eiji leans forward on the tips of his toes, slipping a little in the sand, and kisses his cheek, soft and tender. “You do not need to see right away. You can have all the time in the world.”

Eiji is so good it’s just not _fair_ that he’s stuck on someone as—as—fucked up as Ash is, but he’s here and he refuses to go away and Ash is done pushing him away and he’s ready to burst. Eiji is ready to give him all the time in the world, but something just _clicked_ and raw, roaring desire surges up in him, yearning to reach out and clutch the offering of happiness that Eiji is holding out to him, and he—

He wants—

He reaches—

He grasps—

“I wanna be your boyfriend, Eiji!” The words burst out, and he squeezes his eyes shut and ducks his head again in their wake. “I want you and I don’t want to care that I’m a wreck and I want—I want this and you, and I wanna be good enough for you and I don’t care how much work it takes, I’m _gonna_ be good enough for you, and, and…”

“Oh, Aslan,” Eiji murmurs tenderly, letting go of his hands to cup his cheeks. Ash’s hands find their way to settle at his waist, holding him close, and oh, the look in Eiji’s eyes is so unbelievably gentle and loving that he has to close his own. “Oh, my sweet Ash.”

Eiji kisses him as a wave breaks and shallow water rushes around their ankles. His lips are soft and he tastes of vanilla like his lip balm, and Ash has been kissed a hundred (thousand) (million) times before but this kiss might as well be his first, because it’s the first kiss he’s received from _his boyfriend,_ officially, and… and…

It takes him half a second to remember to kiss back, but then his arms wind around Eiji and he presses closer, and Eiji makes a little soft sound that’s muffled into his mouth as he leans back, pressing into Ash’s arm. His skin is warm and his lips are heaven and Ash can’t get enough of him, even with an innocent closed-mouth kiss like this one—he never wants this to end, never wants to pull away, never wants to stop kissing Eiji Okumura in his life.

He does, eventually, because he’s desperate to kiss his cheeks and his forehead and his nose and his eyelashes, and then Eiji is in his arms, holding onto his shirt and giggling. “Ash, Ash!”

“I wanna kiss you forever.” Ash nuzzles his cheek. “I wanna kiss you every day and I wanna wake up just like today every morning and I wanna be with you for the rest of my life and—”

“Wow, is this an American tradition you did not tell me about?” Eiji loops his arms about his neck and pulls him in close, until their foreheads touch, and though his voice is teasing, his eyes are full of warmth. “Proposing marriage on the same day you agree to be my boyfriend?”

“Eiji!” Ash whines, because okay maybe that did sound like a proposal but Eiji doesn’t have to point it _out,_ but then Eiji kisses the corner of his mouth so sweetly he forgets the rest of whatever he was about to complain about. “Mm…”

“Don’t worry.” Eiji strokes his hair back from his forehead as another wave rushes past their feet, and sea foam swirls about their ankles. The sky is reflected in his eyes—it’s blue, Ash thinks wildly—as he looks up, smiling. “I also want to marry you, one day.”

“One day,” Ash breathes. It feels like a new beginning. The water carries his grief out to sea and drowns his pain and leaves him floating in the sunlight, content and free. “Yeah.”

Eiji caresses his jaw, and he melts, leaning his cheek into his touch. “We have all the time we want, to figure this out, you know. To figure ourselves out, and each other, and everything else.”

“I never used to plan ahead for any kind of real future,” Ash confesses, closing his eyes. “Was only ever into surviving. Not living. Not until I got here, with you.”

Even now in Japan, he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He wants to learn to live, but the amount of freedom now surrounding him is almost overwhelming. He doesn’t remember the last time he was allowed to just… be, without having to worry about torture or death or _something_ hanging above his head. There are so many possibilities he could pursue that he doesn’t even know where to start.

But maybe… he doesn’t have to figure it out alone.

And maybe there’s merit to figuring things out together.

And maybe, even, one day he won’t believe he’s dragging Eiji down by being a constant reminder of all the violence and trauma he saw in New York. He doesn’t know how he could possibly see himself any other way, but he likes the idea all the same.

“We will have a good future,” Eiji promises, just barely audible over the soughing sea. “We will make it happen.”

“I don’t even know what I want out of our future.” Ash tries it, tastes the words _our future_ on his tongue. They taste kind of like sea air. He thinks he likes it. “I… there’s a lot. I’ve been here six months and I’m still learning Japanese, and I need to be more fluent to go to school or something, and I don’t even know what I might wanna study, and… I’ve never even _thought_ about any of this before!”

Eiji slides a hand into his hair, scrunches his fingers through it, and smiles. “No fretting while we are on vacation. You will keep learning, and the rest will fall into place. You will figure things out, and I will help you. But in the meantime, you can think about the nice things you know will happen.”

Ash leans his head down, steals a kiss, and hums. “Nice things I know will happen?”

Eiji nods earnestly. “We will move away from my family and to our own place next month! That is a nice thing. We can decorate our apartment together, instead of having it come pre-furnished. That is another nice thing! And we can make other nice plans. See?”

Ash considers that as a gull cries, wheeling far overhead. He’s missed living alone with Eiji, that’s true, even if the place was more a base of operations than a home for a long time. And this time, it will be a home from the start, and they can make it that.

Griff always used to love romance movies, where the couples would dance around in the kitchen in their pajamas, baking sweets late at night and fooling around while the oven heated. Or where they sleepily clung to each other while making breakfast and soft, vintage music played from the radio. It’s been years and years and _years_ since Ash watched one of those with him, but the memories punch him in the gut and take his breath away, and suddenly he’s overcome with the need to reenact stupid domestic scenes with Eiji and laugh his days away.

One. Eiji is turning him into the sappiest fucking sap there ever has been.

Two. He’s never been happier.

“And we’re gonna get married one day?” he asks softly, brushing his nose against Eiji’s.

Eiji nods and kisses his cheek. “Yes. We are, and then I will get to do that Western tradition where I can do _this_ —”

Abruptly, the world tilts, and Ash lets out a very undignified yelp as Eiji grabs him and his feet leave the ground. Eiji laughs, holding him easily in a—in a _bridal carry,_ strong arms supporting his thighs and back, and pecks his cheek. Ash squawks and clutches at his shoulders. “Eiji!”

“—and carry you home!” Eiji starts walking, _splash splash splash,_ toward the distant blue line where the sky meets the sea.

“Eiji!” Ash flails a bit, but stops because he doesn’t want Eiji to drop him. “Hey, put me down, oh my god, Eiji, I’m heavy, you don’t have to—”

“Do not underestimate me!” Eiji grins, wading knee-deep in the waves now. The crest of one brushes past Ash’s foot, and he yelps again. “You are not that heavy, and I am stronger than you think!”

When the water reaches his waist, Eiji stops walking, letting the swells come up to his chest. Ash is soaked and still clinging to him, spluttering. Eiji bounces him in his arms, playful and teasing, and nuzzles his cheek.

“The water is nice and warm today,” he says cheerfully, bouncing him again. Ash tightens his arms about his shoulders. “Don’t you think, Ash?”

Ash gives him a plaintive look. “Don’t drop me.”

At that, Eiji stops bouncing him and stills, letting him float and supporting him against his chest as the next wave rolls by. The water is warm, but Eiji is warmer, standing there in his dumb hat and cute tank top and shorts.

“Do not worry,” he says, pecking his cheek. “I will never let you fall.”

Ash smiles, warm inside. “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> ash: your hat is so dorky oh my god  
> eiji, sticking his tongue out: maybe, but it is effective!
> 
> [Several Hours Later...]
> 
> ash, shoulders approximately the color of a lobster: :(  
> eiji: your sunburns are so dorky oh my god  
> ash: DON'T BE MEAN TO ME I'M ALREADY SUFFERING  
> eiji: uwu


End file.
